User blog:GreenMoriyama/Bots Discussion
This is a secluded discussion about bots, and my peeves when they do not serve their purpose. Surely, there are the arguments of "then go play PvP" or "get gud," but that is not what I am arguing for. What I am arguing is akin to "if you are going to have X product, it better be either consistent or good enough." At some level, I don't feel that to be the case with For Honor's bots, although it can be said that Ubisoft hides bot difficulty behind an artificial wall. Yet... this artificial wall is yet another issue of the bots, so I'll discuss that later. Main Arguments Below is a bullet point list of summaries of what bothers me with bots. More to be elaborated below. *Very rigid bots levels, where lvl1 bots really differ from lvl2 bots, the same between 2 and 3 *Lack of inconsistency between different heroes, where recently updated bots, or certain bots, are more capable than others, regardless of the bots predetermined "fighting style" *Artificial capabilities, such as having near-perfect reaction time and not suspectible to fients These points are not in any particular order of importance. Bot Levels The first point I'd like to make is how limiting that 3 levels are. Surely, it may mimick how there is typically three levels of difficulty in some games, being easy, normal and hard. However, that mostly applies to a PvE-first environment from my understanding. Whenver PvP is a priority, having bots only work off three levels is like having bots in a PvE only be lvl 5, lvl 20 and lvl 50. For this reason, it is rather unacceptable; once again, certainly the game is focused on PvP, but if there is going to be bots, as mentioned above, I would assume they can be better optimized. What I would suggest would be to expand levels, even if only to five from three. Having a the current lvl2 bot be lvl3, the lvl3 bot be lvl5, and then fill the gaps with new bots. This way, if you do happen to enter a higher level of play for bots, it won't go from "no deflect" bots to "always deflect" bots (an exaggeration, but the point is made). Per Player Level One other thought that came to mind would be that bots should not all default to one lvl based on the collective of your team's level. Instead, it will pair each bot's level to a player's supposed skill level. This will mean that even if there is a high level player, the rest of the players will not need to face bots above their desired level. It may seem to screw with people who do solo 4v4s, but it should not, as allied bots will simply follow the usual logic of averaging its lvl to that of the existing players, and in response the opposing bot for it will reflect the same. There is also the fact that if a bot needs to change level because a player enters/leaves a game, they can "disappear" at the same time that player spawns in/gets out, levelling the battlefield hopefully. Consistency When I use the term "consistency," I refer to the consistency of skill and action between different Hero bots and their levels. This observation mostly lie in what occurs with lvl1 bots, where some bots are overly simplified, usually unupdated base game Heroes, whereas DLC and updated Heroes will have bot AIs who act differently. Of course, there is the case where different bots have different gmeplay style, but this is referring to some Heroes feeling favourably harder to deal with. Is a lvl1 bot able to fient? Can they dodge? I don't know, but it's been really unclear, although I do feel the updated Heroes fare better. I mostly point to the updated Heroes like the recent updates for Warden and Valkyrie and how even their lvl1 bots know how to spam certain moves, on top of a possible fient coming from a lvl1 bot for Valkyrie. Others such as the Aramusha, feel like they use a mechanic too well, although this dips into the next point. Artificial Difficulty Category:Blog posts